AirAsia boss: Dreams are possible

KUALA LUMPUR: “I want people to believe anything is possible if they put their minds to it. That dreams are possible.”

This is the central message in Tan Sri Tony Fernandes’ memoir, Flying High: My Story From AirAsia to QPR.

“I’ve had many failures, which are (mentioned) in this book, but I don’t regret any of those failures.

“I think too many Asians worry about failure, so we don’t do things.

“But I did it, and I failed pretty spectacularly in some things.

“There are no short cuts (to success). It’s hard work,” he said at the book launch yesterday.

He added that another message he wanted people to take from his memoir was the importance of inclusiveness.

“The world has become (more) dangerous with polarisation of race and religion, and discrimination is coming back,” he said.

He said that the memoir did not shy away from detailing sad events and periods in his life, including the crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 (QZ8501) in 2014.

“I wanted people to see that life is not always fantastic, but you can cope with it and you can come back.

“If everything is fantastic all the time, you can’t (learn to) appreciate things,” he said.

Another honest revelation in the book is the detail of his mother Ena’s battle with bipolar disorder.

“Kamaruddin (AirAsia Malaysia executive chairman Datuk Kamaruddin Meranun), who came with me on my honeymoon with his wife, read it.

“And he came back and said, ‘it’s an amazing book and I cried’. He said, ‘I didn’t know your life before RAP (Warner Music) and AirAsia’.

“It made me think and I reread it, thinking ‘why would he cry?’ and I can see what he felt,” he added.

Fernandes added that while his memoir was a tale of his life, he still had more to achieve.

“You have to keep dreaming. If you don’t dream anymore, you have nothing to live for,” he said.